In his latest documentary, the director of Darwin’s Nightmare takes us on a modern odyssey, a dizzying, science fiction-like journey into the heart of Africa in his tiny, self-made flying machine.
At the moment when Sudan, the continent’s biggest country, is being divided into two nations, an old ‘civilising’ pathology re-emerges – that of colonialism, clash of empires, and yet new episodes of bloody (and holy) wars over land and resources. The director leads us into most improbable locations and into people’s thoughts and dreams: Chinese oil workers, UN peacekeepers, Sudanese warlords, and American Evangelist missionaries.
»There's something kind of encrypted in our veins, almost, that we, the Western culture, we Europeans have been overthrowing civilisations, killing millions of people in the world. And as we did annihilate civilisations over the centuries, in the Americas, in Africa, in Asia, we always had to come up with a narrative that excuses our doing so. And of course the narrative was supported by Christianity. We, the Europeans, we always had to come up with a way to explain to ourselves that we are actually good people while we are killing everyone else on the other side of the world.«
- Hubert Sauper
Hubert Sauper
Born in 1966 in Kitzbühel, Tyrol, Sauper studied film directing in Vienna and Paris. He lived in Great Britain, Italy, the USA, and since 1994 in France. Devoted mostly to making documentaries, Hubert also teaches film classes. The last two documentaries he wrote and directed were awarded twelve international film prizes. Darwin's Nightmare was nominated for an Academy Award.